#Hack4Diversity: A Recap of our San Francisco and San Jose Hackathons

by Saidah Bishop, Communications Assistant at Code2040

July 15th and July 16th we hosted two hackathons for our Fellows at Github in San Francisco and Univision in San Jose. Both events brought together our Fellows working in Oakland/San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Portland, OR to design products that solved reoccurring problems for marginalized communities. Each year our #Hack4Diversity hackathon allows our Fellows to show off their technical skillsets and their gifts for spotting problems others may sometimes miss. This year was no different, and by the end of the event we were floored by the caliber of ideas that were pitched to our judges in both locations.

San Francisco

At the end of the 24 hours, Fellows submitted 15 projects to our judges. The projects ranged from an app that makes requesting repairs for public housing residents more efficient, to a service that allows event organizers to send leftover food to local soup kitchens. Though each team came up with unique products, we couldn’t help but notice a common theme running through many of the projects. Most of the projects sought to create tools for people who are overlooked and often left to fend for themselves such as first-generation college students, non-native English speakers new to the U.S., and formerly incarcerated people. Check out some of our winners:

Pictured here: Jamal Pace, Emilio Aurea, Yadel Abraham, Tasti Zakarie, Abdul Ali,

Global Impact

Chess is an online platform that helps people who were formerly incarcerated secure employment and break past the stigma by allowing their references to write reviews about their work experience and work ethic. This way their future employer has a holistic understanding of their potential employee. This group took home $40 in Lyft points and $100 each.

Pictured here: Zanetta Tyler, Maya Ramsey, Genesis Hernandez

Best Design

Ladder is a web application that connects people of color in computer science to other people of color based on their interests and expertise. The goal is to help both groups improve their weak spots while offering their expertise to someone else. This group won one hour with Ian Spalter, the head of design at Instagram and $100 each.

Pictured here: John Anukem, Candace Johnson, Terence Jacobs, Jib Adegunloye, Chloe Matthews, Braxton Gunter

Technically Difficult

Dbl_c is a location based app that shows you where police brutality is taking place near you as well as the closest people of color-owned businesses. This app keeps you informed about local injustices while offering you a solution to help empower the locals by putting more money into their community. This team won a private tour of the Pandora Oakland office and a group career feedback session with a Pandora recruiter as well as a free year subscription to Pandora Plus and $100 each.

Pictured here: Juan Zamudio, Rosario Huamani Carpio, Errol Francis, Isiah Manns, Adrian Vera, Edwin Villafane

Best Pitch

BoCo is an app that allows you to find local Black and Latinx owned businesses in industries like the food, beauty, and clothing industries. This team won one hour with Sydney Thomas, our hackathon judge and VC and $100 each.

Pictured here: Glyne Gittens, Paul Grad, Jorge Fuentes, Shawn Fenerin, Adrian Garza, Anthony Addo

People’s Choice

Fridge is a platform that allows event organizers and local soup kitchens to connect so leftover food from big events in San Francisco can be distributed to the kitchens. This team won 1 hour with our CEO, Laura Weidman Powers.

San Jose

The 12 teams from our San Jose hackathon spent their 24 hours creating equally amazing and innovative projects. We saw two product themes from this group. The first: applications that could provide greater access and interest in technology for children of color. An example of this was a team who created a free virtual program for k-12 students teaching coding with fun virtual reality classrooms. The second: products that addressed oppressive behaviors. One team that had an ambitious solution to these types of behaviors ended up creating a product similar to Grammarly, but instead of it being a filter to correct your grammar, it would highlight what percentage of your language was oppressive or offensive to others based off of categories like classism, racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, etc.

There was some tough competition this year and these two teams managed to get the top prizes (with one team securing two of the three)!

Pictured from L to R: Jonathan Sanchez, Courtney Morrison, Modou Jaw, Alyshia Macaysa, Tuan Anh Tran Carabello, and Doanh Tran Carabello

People’s Choice Award + Ready to Launch Award

NetBridge was created upon the realization that viewing mentors and role models who have been where you have been and are where you want to be is the most meaningful. This team created a beautifully designed forum for finding mentors with relatable backgrounds and specific current achievements that create value and connection for mentees. Each member from this team took home Amazon Fires and will have a full feature in our Medium publication.

Pictured from L to R: Christopher Lopez-Araiza, Brandon Woodard, Shelby Heinecke and Horalia Armas

Community Impact Award

Our Cache was created to fight gentrification by contextualizing your experiences within a locale. A user of this application looks through their camera in the app and finds pinned memories, facts and historical data that are provided by users. A user could experience personal memories and historical facts about an area that would deepen understanding and add intrinsic value to any community they step into. Each member from this team took home Amazon Fires and will have a full feature in our Medium publication.

Check out this one minute recap video from the San Jose hackathon made by our host, Univision!